Normal, Not
by Patricia de Lioncourt
Summary: Buffy Post S7. When the world was going to be in danger, there was only one person that could save it. But for Buffy, that meant more than just giving up a Tuesday afternoon.
1. Normal, Not

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Vampire Hunter D. All the characters belong to their respective owners, making no money here.  
**A/N:** So, first off, this is totally unrelated to my Vampire Hunter T series that I concluded back in 2012. That being said, this idea came to me and I just had to write it. August Fic-a-Day 4.

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**Normal, Not**

She was dreaming. But, in all fairness, maybe she wasn't. After all, was it still considered dreaming if you just relived things that really happened? Because that's what Buffy was doing. She knew she was sleeping—in a way—but it still replayed over and over. The events that led her here.

The coven called Willow, said they'd predicted The End—capital letters and all. Not the end of the world, exactly. But the end of the world as they knew it. Something awful was going to happen, and to top it all off, not a Slayer was to be seen in their vision. Something about that upset Buffy. There were hundreds upon hundreds of Slayers now, thanks to her. But in this vision of a distant, terrible future there were exactly zero Slayers. But that was why the coven had called. They had called to prevent this.

They had spells, and then the rest of the world had technology. Those two things were combined. And then someone had to be chosen. One of the girls had to sacrifice everything to save a world they wouldn't even recognize. That didn't seem fair. Here Buffy had handed them untold power and untold responsible, sure… but to give up everything when she hadn't? No. That wasn't going to happen to her girls. So, it was time for The Chosen One to be chosen again. Or rather, she volunteered.

There was a hissing noise invading her dream. She didn't remember that. Not at the part she was dreaming about at the moment anyway. Buffy was dreaming about her good-byes. Telling all her loved ones—sister, friends, all of them—how much she, well, loved them. And that this was for the good of everyone.

There was that hissing noise again! This time, it was followed by beeping. Beeping that strangely sounded like a countdown. Buffy tried to ignore it, to continue with her dreaming. But her dream was reaching the end of its loops. She was climbing into the machine constructed by both science and magic—the machine she was sleeping in now. The clear, glass dome was closing over her and she watched as Dawn tried her best not to let Big Sister see her tears.

And that was it. Usually, the dream restarted there. But this time, it didn't. Instead, she felt her finger twitch. In real life, her finger twitched. God, she didn't even know how long it had been since that had happened. She heard the hissing noise again as the beeping stopped, and suddenly became distinctly aware of a light being shined in her face. Her eyelids fluttered, trying to fight it, but finally, Buffy managed to open them.

The lid to the machine was open, and Buffy was really, truly awake. She blinked against the light, trying to adjust. It took her only a moment to realize that that light had to be coming from somewhere. She wasn't alone. The voice behind the light confirmed that for her.

"Buffy Summers."

The voice was old, gruff, and harsh. Very much called to mind a bent old man.

"Do I know you?" she asked.

Her own voice sounded pretty bad, and she just realized how really dry her throat was. She rested her hand to it when another voice said, "Here, drink this. It's water."

Buffy's eyes had still not cleared, and she knew better than to trust absolutely. Life lessons learned, but right now, she was at their mercy. Why would they poison water when they could just shoot her or something? She took the canteen and gulped the lukewarm liquid down. She was pretty sure she returned it to the owner bone dry. But, hey, at least her throat felt better.

"Do I know you?" she asked.

"No," the gruff voice said, sounding just a tinge sad. "But I know you. You're the Frozen Girl. The Slayer that, thousands of years ago, chose to be both mystically and cryogenically frozen so that she could be awoken in a future that would need her. Took me a while to find you, but I'm glad I did."

Buffy wished she still had enough water left in her mouth to do a spit-take. Her vision was clearing, and the light was moved out of her face. It was odd, but she was pretty sure that only one person was standing there when she had definitely heard two voices.

"_Thousands_? How many thousands?" she asked, starting to get up out of the machine.

"Add about ten thousand, give or take a handful, to the year you went to sleep."

"Twelve thousand!"

"Plus some."

Buffy, now standing completely out of the machine, leaned back against it. The gruff voice sighed.

"Sorry."

The Slayer blinked a few more times, getting the last bit of blurry out of her vision before she finally rested her eyes on the person that had probably woke her up. She found herself very surprised. He was young, at least in his early twenties… or at least that's how he looked. When she met his cold eyes, something told her that lying about his age would probably be a good idea. He was much older. And handsome in an androgynous way, with long black hair and pale skin. He was dressed all in black, with a cloak about his shoulders and a wide-brimmed hat on his head. A long sword, almost going the length of him, was strapped to his back.

"You look too young to sound that old," she commented.

"That would be because you were talking to me," came a voice somewhere from around the vicinity of the man's left hip.

As if in answer to Buffy's unasked question, the man before her lifted his left hand until the palm was upright in front of her. And she blinked again to make sure she wasn't seeing things. There was a face in the hand! A little, wrinkled face!

"Call me Left Hand, and, toots, we need to book!"

"What?"

There was hissing again, but different from the sounds Buffy had heard when she awoke. This time, it sounded like snakes.

"It'll be safer when we're out of here," the younger man—and voice—said.

"O-kay. Let's go with that," Buffy agreed, seeing movement in the shadows of the stone room she stood in.

She pushed off of the machine, only to find her legs wobbling underneath her. She couldn't hold her own weight and fell forward, with the young man catching her.

"Look, I don't even know your name to have you making me all swoon-y."

"I'm D. And it's a side effect of being frozen for so long. It should wear off in a few hours, a few days at most. For now, let's go."

#

But D had been wrong. Weeks had passed, and while Buffy was now strong enough to walk, she still wasn't strong _enough_. Left Hand, once the three (was it really three? Did the hand count?) got safely out of the castle they had found her in, explained that it had taken him quite some time to convince D to seek out the Frozen Girl. But he finally managed it due to a new problem they were facing, namely a vampire.

But that didn't matter at the moment. At the very present moment in time, Buffy was more worried about her lack of Slayer abilities and her necessity to stay alive long enough to gain them back. The world was harsh now, harsher than hers had ever been. Apparently, and Left Hand glossed over the details here, nukes had been fired between world leaders. And then, vampires and other nasties that had survived took control of the world.

It was a wasteland, full of monsters both old and new. And some that weren't even really fightable, like a mist that melted you like acid that just lazily drifted from place to place. And the landscape? The landscape was nothing but flat and barren. Just getting from the castle to the next town, D had fought no less than twelve different monsters, all the while Buffy having to hide.

And now, weeks later, they had set up a secured campsite somewhere in the middle of God-knew-where. Buffy didn't recognize her world anymore, but one thing was certain. This had to be it, the future that needed the Slayer. But it was a shame that the Slayer was broken.

"So, you're without your super powers. Plenty of people survive out here without super powers, kid," Left Hand said while Buffy sat in the threshold of a tent.

"But that was the whole reason I gave up everything."

"You're normal," D said in his even way that Buffy found very annoying.

"But I'm not. And, you know what? Neither are you. You've got a talking Left Hand and you're half-vampire. Yeah, that's right! Your appendage outted you! And I'm just the little hanger-on… the scared girl who should be the most useful person you've ever met, but I'm not. I feel great. But I'm still not strong."

"A side effect of the mystical side of your sleep?" D offered, completely side-stepping the fact that a _vampire_ Slayer now knew he was half-vampire like a boss.

Buffy shrugged. "Even if it is, everyone I knew who could help me is dead. I've got no Giles or Willow to go to."

No one questioned who those people were, but that didn't seem odd. It may have only been a few weeks, but Buffy had already learned that D wasn't exactly the share-and-care type. But, now that she was thinking about it, something did come to mind. She leaned forward, pointed at the two (one?) who had woke her up.

"When you found me… you said there was a reason. You got D to find me because something had gone weird. What was it?"

D had long stopped with the courtesy of lifting up Left Hand so he could talk face-to-palm with Buffy. But the two still talked, D's comfort be damned.

"Not what, sweetheart. Who. A vampire that's stayed pretty well hidden for all this time has stepped out of the shadows, trying to reclaim the world for his kind. He kills like no vampire D has ever seen, and now he's got twelve-plus thousand years of technology to help him do it. But you know him. And that's why we need you."

Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Who?"

"Angelus."

She didn't say anything. Instead, she crawled into her tent and zipped it up. So this was the future she was going to save? Her friends gone, Angelus on the loose, and her powers MIA? Since Tuesdays were Dawn-in-Danger days, this sort of stuff usually happened on Wednesdays.

#

"I want to help you stop Angelus, but first I need my Slayer mojo back," Buffy finally said after a few days.

No answer from either of her traveling companions. So she continued.

"It might take a while. Some visits to shamans or whatever. It might be smarter for you to drop me off and let me do this on my own. We could arrange a meet-up."

"Not happening," Left Hand finally answered. "You'd be dead in less than a day."

"So, you're going to help me get them back?"

They were astride D's cyborg black stallion, trotting through the open, flat landscape. D glanced over his shoulder at her.

"We'll aid you… unless something needs to be about Angelus sooner. Then you'll just have to figure it out."

Harsh. Like everything was around here. But Buffy nodded.

"Aside from escalation, you'll help. Sounds fair. Now, we should start right away."

"I'm heading to a well-known Witch Doctor that lives in the coastal town of Blue."

Buffy smiled. Normal, not, whatever… she still had great people skills.


	2. Hope is a Thing with Sharp Teeth

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Vampire Hunter D. All the characters belong to their respective owners, making no money here.

**A/N:** (This note is a little older, as it's from August, but it's still true. As for posting here on fanfiction dot net, I'll be uploading this one shots as chapters, as you can tell, and as I've also said in this older note, this story isn't over).Today is my off day, one of two I get during the week. I promised myself I would write one of my more involved stories during said off day, so here we go. I'm sure I'll have more in this series, as I know this story isn't the end. Also, I'm using this for my hc-bingo square, hostile climate. And yes, the title is inspired by Emily Dickenson.

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**Hope Is a Thing with Sharp Teeth**

Shamans, witches, wizards, and even a few well-dressed trolls later, and Buffy was still sans Slayer strength. Weeks, they had been at this. Buffy was pretty sure she had added it up to at least three months worth of weeks, actually. Now, at least one-thousand miles away from their first shaman in the coastal town of Blue, they had stopped to rest and recharge at a little dusty town called Mite. Buffy stood outside by the hitching post that D's stallion was strapped to. Her eyes shielding her from the light of the sun glaring down—which so intense that she was pretty sure that was why there wasn't a speck of greenery anywhere to be seen—she huffed. The horse imitated her, and she grinned. The poor thing was unnamed, according to Left Hand, all because D went through them too fast. Something about that bothered the Slayer-but-not, so her thoughts were now temporarily distracted by trying to come up with a suitable name for the creature.

"Blackie is a little on the nose," she murmured to it as a dry breeze blew by, feeling like sandpaper on her skin. She'd kill for a good moisturizer right about now. "Maybe Ebony? Nah… I'd hum 'Ebony and Ivory' every time I said it. What else could we call you?"

D exited the inn behind her, and Buffy turned. The dhampire didn't look happy, but then again, he never did. Buffy supposed though that he looked less happy than usual.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"We've got to go," D said, mounting the stallion and reaching down to pull Buffy up behind him.

She held on around D's waist, no longer shy about it. At the speeds at which he rode, it was more a necessity than ever a flirtation. He pulled the horse's reins, digging in his heels once, and off they trotted in the opposite direction that they had entered the town from. Buffy leaned ever so slightly around, looking up at the pale man.

"Where we goin'? Another witch? Please tell me not another troll. Those things are rank!"

"None of the above, sweetheart," Left Hand responded. "We heard some pretty disturbing news in there. We've been hired, to boot."

"But, wait a minute, I thought—" Buffy began, but D cut her off.

"It's escalated."

Buffy pursed her lips, nodding grimly. She had hoped, beyond everything, that it wouldn't come to this. That Angelus—the new problem for them and a very old one for Buffy—would hold off on whatever he had planned long enough for her to get her Slayer strength back. But things never did work that way for her. And, she couldn't help it, but a little well of fear rose up in her. After all, she knew just how bad Angelus could be… and here she was, Helpless Girl Number Seventy-Six.

"What about me? Are you dropping me off somewhere?" she asked.

"No," D responded.

Buffy blinked. "Okay, so what? I'm just supposed to cheer you on?"

"You'll fight."

"Excuse me?"

Left Hand cleared his, um, throat or whatever, cutting in.

"You know Angelus the best… well, considering. So you'll help us get into the castle that he's holed up in. Then, we'll take it from there."

Earlier in their travels, Buffy had been very confused by the idea of castles as actual homes to vampires. Seemed very old school for a very new age. But Left Hand had explained that the Nobles, what vampires had taken to calling themselves, liked old designs. Now, Buffy just settled into her place behind D, trying to act like she was okay with going up against Angelus or anything that he might have guarding him, when she totally wasn't.

#

The Frontier, what they called the land now, was a flat, dead thing, save for where humans had forced life back into it. The weather was harsh and varied from region to region and the switch between each region came with no warning. One minute, the weather was dry, hot and dirty, then it was cold and wet. They were finally resting in a region that was relatively mild, at the edge of a forest that Buffy had the inkling that they were going into, despite every fiber of her being wanting to stay right where she was. She could hear creatures calling from within the line of trees, snarls and snaps and howls. And that happened wherever they went, not just the forest. She sat by the fire that D had built, her knees tucked under her chin.

"What caused this?" she asked.

They didn't actually look at one another, but Buffy could feel the mental glance exchanged between D and his left hand. Finally, D was the one that answered.

"A world leader pushed a button that launched several missiles."

Buffy's brow furrowed. "Nuclear missiles?"

D nodded. Stretching her legs out, Buffy swallowed hard.

"When?"

Another mental exchange. This time, it was Left Hand that spoke.

"2005."

Buffy felt the tears well up before the thought even sank fully in. 2005… one year after she was frozen.

"Only a year…" she whispered.

Neither D nor Left Hand spoke.

She had given it all up. Her life, her friends, her family, everything. All for the greater good, as it always was. And The Powers That Be couldn't even have given her loved ones a happy life? No, instead, without her to protect them, they were plunged into a nuclear-spawned Hell on Earth. And now, here she was, awake as promised, but without the one thing she needed. She felt sick.

She was standing and crying, and she didn't remember when she had done either.

"Not all humans perished," D said.

If only she had her strength, she would've hit him. Instead, she just entered the tent and went to sleep.

#

They stood at the entrance of the castle that supposedly held Angelus. And Buffy told them everything she knew. But it had been twelve-thousand plus years since she had last seen soulless Angel. He might have learned a few more tricks. D handed Buffy something that looked like a road flare, and he explained that it was a special candle that could produce daylight.

"Just in case. Now, wait here."

And they were gone into the castle, leaving Buffy out in the dark with the creatures that she could hear all about her. Snarling, snapping, growling, and howling surrounded her. Buffy had a bad feeling about all this. About D going up against Angelus alone. About Buffy standing outside with nothing but a candle.

Trees snapped in the distance. Whole trees. Buffy's eyes widened. Thankfully, D had also left her with the horse and she ran now to it. She began rummaging through the saddlebags, trying to find anything that might be a bit more useful than a candle. Finally, she managed to find a sword that was much shorter than the one D carried on him always. Perfect size for her, really. And she found it just in time.

Charging through the trees was a monster of a thing that Buffy could not put a single name to. It looked like a wolf/horse/demon hybrid. Its maul was soaked in its own saliva, and it bared all its teeth, stained pink, to her. It galloped toward her at break-neck speeds, and for the first time in a long time, Buffy was sure she couldn't win. She went one way and D's horse went another, with the Wolf-thing going straight down the middle.

"D warned me about the experiments that the vampires had done on creatures… but he didn't tell me they were all huge!" she muttered, turning and holding the sword like she remembered she should.

The creature was already coming back around to make another pass at her, its hulking figure easily able to crush her if it landed on her. She was tired, and the sword was heavier than it looked. She couldn't fight this thing until D came back. She had to make a stand, because the odds were that she was dead anyway.

The creature charged, and Buffy held her ground. It was running nearer and neared, and just at the last second, she jumped to the side, turning and slamming her sword into its side with all her might. It slid in with no resistance, but the creatures momentum yanked the weapon from her hands. It bucked and ran about in circles, wailing as it did. Finally, with a last ear-splitting cry, it fell over. Buffy waited a moment, making sure that its chest no longer rose and fell, before she finally collapsed to the ground. Her own breathing was heavy and she was near to sobbing.

Suddenly, a blinding light made her reel, and a familiar voice said, "Dude, I can't believe I did it!"

Buffy blinked against the light, letting her eyes adjust. When they did, she could see the glowing form of her long-dead BFF and witch, Willow, standing before her. She was dressed in a white, flowing dress, her red hair glowing brighter than the rest of her.

"Willow…" Buffy said. "Willow, I don't have my strength."

Willow crossed her arms. "Jeez, Buffy. I cross into this world—and it's really me, not some holographic recording—and I don't even get a hello?"

Buffy grinned. "Hi… but something's wrong with me. I've tried everything. It's gone, Willow. I'm not a Slayer anymore. I left all you behind for nothing."

Willow waved her hand in dismissal. "You're fine."

Buffy pushed herself to her feet. "What?"

"I said that you're fine. You've got your Slayer strength. It just took a little push to find it."

Willow jerked a thumb behind her at the dead creature. Buffy shook her head.

"What?"

"See whatcha did there? That thing, by all rights, should have killed you. But instead, you planted a sword right into its lungs. That was all Slayer. You just had to believe you could do it."

Buffy blinked. "Are you kidding me? All that was keeping me from being a Slayer was just 'believing' I 'could do it'?"

Willow shrugged. "Magic and science mixing produces some funky side effects with even funkier cures. Now, don't you have a fight to join? Because, I hate to tell you this, but D's getting his ass handed to him in there."

Buffy nodded. She walked over to the creature, pausing for just a moment. Then, with a grin, she kicked the thing over like it weighed nothing. It was back. Every ounce of her strength. She pulled the sword free and turned. Willow smiled.

"That's our girl. We'll be waiting for you."

With that, she vanished. Buffy's smile hadn't. She brandished the sword once, then glared up at the castle looming over her.

"I'm _so_ back."


End file.
